A new yougov survey has shown that 40% of all United Kingdom landline phone users are ready to completely abandon their tethered in-home phones in favour of mobile phone convenience. We have all very quickly adopted the ability to reach one another via mobiles. And, with the emergence of hybrid phone and laptop computer technologies, one wonders if mobile broadband will out flank home broadband by virtue of its no line rental appeal. One wonders if the convenience factor is the competitive influence for BT and Virgin Media’s recent push to increase home broadband speeds by installation of super fast fibre optic to home connections. Of course at the present time mobile broadband speed remains vastly slower than that of a home connection and mobile broadband coverage is far from 100% available throughout the nation. So while 40% of us are ready to give up our connected phone lines and replace them with mobiles, few of us are willing to completely switchover to total long term contract mobile broadband. Indeed with options in the works such as the Orange and T-mobile merger many people actually prefer temporary solutions such as pay as you go mobile broadband. Certainly Mobile broadband has a huge market in the UK and elsewhere but business requires unlimited downloads at ultra high speeds. Mobile broadband is more about convenience than performance. Interestingly, the United Kingdom’s largest mobile phone company O2 also offers its version of home broadband and home communications giants BT and Virgin Media offer mobiles. So is there any real completion between these factions or should we just avail ourselves of the services we need and shop for the best prices for them?

When attempting to rate download speed don’t be fooled by promises of huge 30, 40 and even 100 MB per second download speed claims. At some point fourth generation 100 MB per second downloads will exist, but for the time being United Kingdom and indeed broadband customers worldwide will need to keep an eye on their Internet connection provider with the occasional broadband comparison. Broadband Choices, the United Kingdom’s leading web site used to compare broadband companies has recently released their speed tests of all the UK’s major home broadband providers. The results of their tally are far short of claimed broadband download speeds from providers such as BT and SKY. Despite claims by BT and complementary broadband reviews, the test results from Broadband Choices reveal that the highest average download speed from any company serving the United Kingdom comes from Virgin Media. Virgin Media’s average download speed topped 7.5 MBPS. O2 Broadband placed second with an average speed of 5.1 MBPS. Talk Talk rated third with base download 3.6 MBPS but placed as the number one upload provider. Talk Talk’s upload speed averaged 733 kilobytes per second. Those in the IT business sector will no doubt take note of this, as IT professionals are most often in need of high speed uploads. Availability of high speed uploads are also a factor for those who enjoy sending video phone calls to friends at home and abroad. Considering that BT did not even place on this list of fastest home broadband providers, one wonders how they manage to continue to claim to offer the United Kingdom’s fastest download speeds?